


safe as houses

by missymeggins



Category: Life (US TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Summary: A strange thing happens in the aftermath of her kidnapping. For the first time in longer than Dani can even remember she finds that she doesn't want to be alone.
Relationships: Charlie Crews/Dani Reese





	safe as houses

A strange thing happens in the aftermath of her kidnapping. For the first time in longer than Dani can even remember she finds that she doesn't want to be alone. In the silence of her apartment late at night, Dani feels small. She feels fragile. She feels afraid.

(The irony here is that Tidwell keeps telling her he'll come over but she brushes him off. There's an entirely different kind of fear there, but nonetheless she doesn't have the courage to deal with it.)

So one night she calls Charlie.

“Hey Crews? I need you to talk to me. Can you do that?” she asks, all in a rush as soon as she hears his voice.

“Dani are you drunk?” he asks carefully.

“No Crews, I'm not drunk,” she tells him, rolling her eyes and idly hoping he can hear it through the phone. “I just...I just need you to talk okay. About anything. Tell me about your favourite fruits.”

“Okay,” he says gently. “Have you ever heard of a Rambutan? I think you'd like it.”

For the next hour Dani listens to Charlie's voice. She stops actually hearing the words about ten minutes in but his voice is there and it curbs the noises in her head until she can feel herself drifting to sleep.

She murmurs, “Thanks Crews,” and hangs up.

…

The next night she calls him again. This time she just says, “Hey,” and lets him take the lead.

“So Ted's gone to Spain to look for Olivia,” he tells her. He almost sounds wistful.

“Do you think she loves him back?” she finds herself asking him, without really knowing why.

“I hope so,” is all he says.

It's quiet for a while and Dani's not sure what to say. (There are things she wishes she could say, but the words always catch in her throat.)

“Hey Dani?” Crews finally asks, his voice more quiet and uncertain than she's used to. “Do you think it's weird that I really don't want to eat oranges ever again?”

She wants to laugh because it's just fruit and that should be trivial and pointless but it's Crews so it's not and somehow it just feels sad. So she just tells him the truth. 

“It's not weird Crews. I don't think I want to eat oranges anymore either.”

“Reese, you never did eat oranges.”

“I know,” she tells him and on the other end of the line she can hear him breathe out, almost as if he'd been holding his breath these past few days, which is exactly how she's felt.

“You can make me try that Rambutan thing if you want.”

…

It's early in the evening and Dani thinks she's feeling stronger. The silence of her apartment doesn't set her on edge so much, and the chaos in her mind has calmed enough for her to bear it. She doesn't need distracting as badly as she had.

She's startled when she hears a knock at her door and for a second she feels fear grip her all over again, but she pushes it back with a deep breathe and opens the door to find Crews standing there, fidgeting with a strange looking fruit in his hands.

“Crews?”

“You didn't call,” he says awkwardly. “So I thought I'd stop by. I found you a Rambutan.”

“Come in,” she says standing aside.

He walks into her living room but he doesn't sit down. “Reese?”

“Yeah Crews,” she answers as she closes her door and turns to face him.

“Your phone calls were kind of keeping me sane. And then you didn't call so... Is it okay that I'm here?”

“I'm glad you're here,” she tells him, taking the fruit from his hands and moving to her kitchen to slice it up while he sits and watches her.

(Tomorrow night, and many nights after that, they'll eat dinner together. Sometimes at his place, sometimes at hers. But tonight, fruit is good enough.)


End file.
